Data screen comparison Garmin -> Wahoo

[calicyclist]

mine has a bad altimeter, (it shows 10%+ gradients when i'm going downhill) and it sometimes changes my pages.

All of the Garmin units for the past several years have "bad altimeters." There's dozens of pages complaining about this on their forums and the mods have even locked them because they are sick of hearing about it and it doesn't appear like they know how to fix it which is laughable.

I am not even sure why I still have gradient displayed on my main page anymore. It's completely useless.

[alanyu]

mine has a bad altimeter, (it shows 10%+ gradients when i'm going downhill) and it sometimes changes my pages.

All of the Garmin units for the past several years have "bad altimeters." There's dozens of pages complaining about this on their forums and the mods have even locked them because they are sick of hearing about it and it doesn't appear like they know how to fix it which is laughable.

I am not even sure why I still have gradient displayed on my main page anymore. It's completely useless.

It's a firmware issue rather than hardware. Old garmins before X20 are normal/good at gradient while X30/40 are laggy. IMO, Garmin dropped sampling rate a lot to 1 hz to enhance battery life, but gradient needs dozen of points to be calculated, resulting in the lag. Third party graident's on IQstore, which let you choose the filter length, work better than Garmin's own.

[calicyclist]

It's a firmware issue rather than hardware. Old garmins before X20 are normal/good at gradient while X30/40 are laggy. IMO, Garmin dropped sampling rate a lot to 1 hz to enhance battery life, but gradient needs dozen of points to be calculated, resulting in the lag. Third party graident's on IQstore, which let you choose the filter length, work better than Garmin's own.

I can't argue against it being a firmware issue. Certainly seems possible. I just don't think anyone knows because Garmin won't say anything which is strange and frustrating given how long it's been going on.

Which IQstore app are you using that's working for you? I've seen several suggested on their forums and then other users saying they didn't have much difference.

[usr]

It's a firmware issue rather than hardware. Old garmins before X20 are normal/good at gradient while X30/40 are laggy. IMO, Garmin dropped sampling rate a lot to 1 hz to enhance battery life, but gradient needs dozen of points to be calculated, resulting in the lag. Third party graident's on IQstore, which let you choose the filter length, work better than Garmin's own.

And yet those third party fields can only work with the 1 hz data provided by the system. On my 1030+ I'm happy with the gradient, I don't think it's worse than on the 1000 I used before and it's fully in line with what I'd expect from barometric gradient. When climbing on a bike, there's only so many decimeters in elevation change in the timespan people expect their gradient to change before they cry lag, and the tiny pressure change of a tenth of a meter (that's about the resolution commonly available sensor components advertise, but that's in lab conditions), requires a lot of smoothing to filter out the noise picked up by the sensor on the road. Less frequent sampling for better runtime can certainly be part of it, but my impression (based on the performance of my trusty 1030+) is that the lamenting on forums is mostly a mix of some units with truly defective sensors, multiplied by a large group of users who expect latency comparable to accelerometry based "water level apps" on their smatphone, completely unaware of how that would require careful calibration and would crazy errors from acceleration and braking. My hypothesis is that the biggest change since the era of x20 devices is that people back then just weren't as accustomed to stationary accelerometer based angle measurement as they are now, had more realistic expectations.

That being said, I certainly wouldn't rule out that gradient latency could benefit from some advanced sensor fusion where barometry gets augmented by a contribution from the 6dof sensors the devices already have (jump detection etc), but we all know why that will not happen: watches aren't mounted at a fixed angle to the ground and Edge aren't a primary development target anymore. And even Edge are not always mounted at a fixed angle to the ground, the bike might happen to be of the mountain type.

One technical detail where the gradient implemention could be worse than necessary, I did suspect my 1000 to suffer from that: for barometric gradient, you need change in altimetry over time, and horizontal progress over time (odometry, aka speed sensor). If the implementation is taken naively from a watch (or just implemented badly), it could be that horizontal progress is taken from GPS even when a speed sensor is present, and possibly even from some raw, unfiltered variation of GPS that would give you a wildly exaggerated speed under bad reception (the extra distance from the coordinates jumping around). If the implementation uses the speed sensor signal when available, but a raw, unfiltered GPS position (as opposed to the prettyfied data on the speed field), then it's also very much a possibility that the grade display degrades (hah!) massively in absence of speed sensor and good GPS reception.

What I do notice, with altimetry on my 1030+, is a wildly off 30s VAM. Grade is fine, as good or bad as is expect, but 30s VAM is wildly off. I run a homebrew cIQ 30s VAM in parallel and the difference is just laughable. I certainly would not bet the farm on my own field being completely without errors (chances are it's 29s VAM or 31s VAM, off-by-one mistakes are easy to make in programming), but the Garmin one is usually off by a huge margin. And my legs certainly know that I'm not performing at 2000 VAM when the cIQ claims a more realistic 1000, and they also know when I'm not performing far more than 200 VAM when the Garmin field underreads. This 30s VAM wrongness is always the same through a day, but it varies a lot from day to day. Recently it has been a clear offset (as in always 1000 higher, no matter if the cIQ reads 50 or 1000), but if memory serves me right it used to be more like a factor in the past. The underlying bug must be pretty wild, considering how much the symptoms change from day to day (or from activity to activity, or from GPS signal acquire to GPS signal acquire, or from wake-up to wake-up, as I rarely do full reboots). I'd love to hear how others see Garmin 30s VAM compare to a cIQ implemention (haven't jumped through the hoops for publication, sorry, but I'd assume that some of the "custom field build kits" include 30s VAM?)

[alanyu]

It's a firmware issue rather than hardware. Old garmins before X20 are normal/good at gradient while X30/40 are laggy. IMO, Garmin dropped sampling rate a lot to 1 hz to enhance battery life, but gradient needs dozen of points to be calculated, resulting in the lag. Third party graident's on IQstore, which let you choose the filter length, work better than Garmin's own.

I can't argue against it being a firmware issue. Certainly seems possible. I just don't think anyone knows because Garmin won't say anything which is strange and frustrating given how long it's been going on.

Which IQstore app are you using that's working for you? I've seen several suggested on their forums and then other users saying they didn't have much difference.

There is a post in Garmin forum showing the sensor. The new one is indeed better in accuracy.

I forgot the name. It is the one showing both altimeter and gradient in one data field. I don't have my bike with me during the short holiday.

[alanyu]

It's a firmware issue rather than hardware. Old garmins before X20 are normal/good at gradient while X30/40 are laggy. IMO, Garmin dropped sampling rate a lot to 1 hz to enhance battery life, but gradient needs dozen of points to be calculated, resulting in the lag. Third party graident's on IQstore, which let you choose the filter length, work better than Garmin's own.

And yet those third party fields can only work with the 1 hz data provided by the system. On my 1030+ I'm happy with the gradient, I don't think it's worse than on the 1000 I used before and it's fully in line with what I'd expect from barometric gradient. When climbing on a bike, there's only so many decimeters in elevation change in the timespan people expect their gradient to change before they cry lag, and the tiny pressure change of a tenth of a meter (that's about the resolution commonly available sensor components advertise, but that's in lab conditions), requires a lot of smoothing to filter out the noise picked up by the sensor on the road. Less frequent sampling for better runtime can certainly be part of it, but my impression (based on the performance of my trusty 1030+) is that the lamenting on forums is mostly a mix of some units with truly defective sensors, multiplied by a large group of users who expect latency comparable to accelerometry based "water level apps" on their smatphone, completely unaware of how that would require careful calibration and would crazy errors from acceleration and braking. My hypothesis is that the biggest change since the era of x20 devices is that people back then just weren't as accustomed to stationary accelerometer based angle measurement as they are now, had more realistic expectations.

Yes those third party gradient's still use 1 hz rate, but I can set a reasonable filter length, reducing the lag and keeping stability.

I clearly remember when I got my 830, which was a preorder at the first release, its gradient was not laggy, compared to XOSS sprint and others 520/800 in the club ride. After the FW updated to 4.8, it gave twice more lag compared to others. . When I started descending a bit, it told me + gradient, while others gave 0 or - gradient.

I don't know the detail algorithm used in XOSS sprint, but the sampling rate seems to be at least 4 hz. Its gradient change is super rapid, reasonable, and, agree with my legs. XOSS team told me that both values from GPS and borameter were used.

[bikeboy1tr]

DC Rainmaker reviewed the 540 saying that it was glitchy with the buttons and recommended the 840 over the 540 which is something he doesnt normally do saying the 5 series typically works well enough that not much advantage could be had by going up to the 8X. I purchased the 840 coming from the 530 and am happy with that and as far as the altimeter goes I dont have much faith in the Garmans for that but typically I just look at meters gained and then use the corrections on the maps for better accuracy if you can call it that.

[Salespunk]

After using Garmin for the last 10+ years I switched to Wahoo about six months ago. I will never go back to Garmin. The Wahoo is so inuitive to use and also super reliable. Always uploads automatically, screens are easy to setup and the buttons are super easy to use even when breathing out my eyeballs. I had constant issues with my Garmin head units. I currently have four of them sitting on my bench right now and they are all dead. Garmin's response was always "here is a discount on a new one" instead of actually adressing the issues.

If you want some sort of esoteric data, maybe there is something that Garmin has that Wahoo doesn't? Will that specific data field make you a better rider or improve your training while you are on the bike? Highly unlikely. Will you be frustrated by rides not uploading, improper read outs, things changing after an update, etc? Highly likely. JMO, but you can probably feel my frustration.

[kurtkowal]

Strange, for me it works with this one button. Do you import the workouts from Trainingpeaks?

Yes, my trainer works with TP

Very strange, for me it works with only one button. I also import via TP...

Maybe we're talking about different things, I refer to the "pause current workout step", which is detailed as the second point in the garmin manual, here is the webhelp.

https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-17DE938E-466A-4746-BDBF-7A6FC1B3A32C/EN-US/GUID-DA139DEC-5B83-410E-ADF5-51880B22FA4B.html

[mikehhhhhhh]

Will you be frustrated by rides not uploading, improper read outs, things changing after an update, etc? Highly likely. JMO, but you can probably feel my frustration.

Had my 1040 for a good 18 months now and I haven't experienced any of these things.

I think the lack of third party data fields kill the wahoo for me.

[B0tt0mline]

Strange, for me it works with this one button. Do you import the workouts from Trainingpeaks?

Yes, my trainer works with TP

Very strange, for me it works with only one button. I also import via TP...

Maybe we're talking about different things, I refer to the "pause current workout step", which is detailed as the second point in the garmin manual, here is the webhelp.

https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp ... 2FA4B.html

Hmm strange, maybe you are right.

For me it is like this:
I do a certain interval and need to stop because of a car: so I press the lower right button and the workout step is paused. If I press again it continoues from where I left.
Could you please explain what you mean and what you would like to pause and why?

Thanks,

Alex

[kurtkowal]

[

Hmm strange, maybe you are right.

For me it is like this:
I do a certain interval and need to stop because of a car: so I press the lower right button and the workout step is paused. If I press again it continoues from where I left.
Could you please explain what you mean and what you would like to pause and why?

Thanks,

Alex

If you press the lower right button you pause the whole activity, it's different than pausing the workout only.

[B0tt0mline]

[

Hmm strange, maybe you are right.

For me it is like this:
I do a certain interval and need to stop because of a car: so I press the lower right button and the workout step is paused. If I press again it continoues from where I left.
Could you please explain what you mean and what you would like to pause and why?

Thanks,

Alex

If you press the lower right button you pause the whole activity, it's different than pausing the workout only.

Got it, but why would you only pause the workout? I just want to understand the usecase

[usr]

Got it, but why would you only pause the workout? I just want to understand the usecase

Recording the ride to a place where conditions allow doing the next interval comes to mind. Why would you want to exclude that from the data log?

[B0tt0mline]

Got it, but why would you only pause the workout? I just want to understand the usecase

Recording the ride to a place where conditions allow doing the next interval comes to mind. Why would you want to exclude that from the data log?

Ok, now I got it - thank you, makes sense.